


Starbucks Employee #6754, are YOU the one?

by halcyeol



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Barista Mark Lee, Happy Ending, M/M, Meet-Cute?, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, barely edited, donghyuck is searching for his man, mark is awkward guys, no beta we die like men, please give this a shot, starbucks employees play an important role
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26865748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyeol/pseuds/halcyeol
Summary: The first thing Donghyuck notices is the boy making the drinks; the boy is cute in a way that makes Donghyuck’s heart stutter for a second. Chiseled features were all the rage these days, but the boyish charm the guy radiated sucked Donghyuck right in. Almost immediately, he wanted to cry because unless the boy switched over to register duty in the five seconds, it took for them to get to the counter, his first words would be “[type of drink] for Lee Donghyuck?!”, not 'Welcome to Starbucks, may I take your order?'
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 13
Kudos: 278





	Starbucks Employee #6754, are YOU the one?

**Author's Note:**

> this is inspired from [this](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/8f/8d/01/8f8d01d20746cb34fa2cab58f3a43c0f.jpg) lovely tumblr post 
> 
> please don't hate me i do see how the writing progressively gets worse as time goes on.

There were probably fifty-thousand people in Seoul who had the words ‘Welcome to Starbucks, may I take your order?” tattooed onto their body somewhere, so Donghyuck had lost hope in finding his soulmate long ago.

Because the issue wasn’t just finding the soulmate, it wasn’t just identifying the one out of many Starbucks employees who said those words a hundred times a day; no, the issue was your soulmate  _ also  _ identifying you. 

Even after six Raspberry Mojito Horchata Refreshers, one Peach Nutella Mint Latte, and four Caramel Snickerdoodle Cheesecake Macchiatos, Donghyuck had yet to find the one employee who recognized the weird combinations he’d thrown at them.

Honestly, he would have given up too if it weren’t for the unexpected thrill he got from tasting the fun combinations, though peach, Nutella, and mint was not a mixture he wanted to try again.

Jaemin thought he was a creep, “let your soulmate come to you for fucks sake, dude, stop trying to ask every Starbucks employee in this city for weird shit.”

Easy for him to say, his tattoo read, ‘you’d fuck that yellow bitch too if he weren’t 2D!’ 

Any mention of the tattoo, though, usually led to a forty-minute rant about how he couldn’t believe Jeno would be the reason he’d been subjected to bullies as a child (to clarify, Jeno’s tattoo read; ‘you’re wasted dude, Spongebob ain’t shit’, so Donghyuck thought it was fair to say the both of them got the short end of the stick)

Jaemin met Jeno at a college party in freshman year (which made sense, them being piss drunk was the only way Donghyuck could even  _ see  _ that conversation happening). Immediately it had delved into a honeymoon phase, three fucking years of it. 

“I knew I was gonna have a special soulmate the second I could understand what the fuck my tattoo said,” Jeno had told him over drinks one night, “I watched every single episode of Spongebob ever to exist because of it, you could even say it was a circular effect.”

Donghyuck hadn’t understood, “how so?”

“You see, I would never have made that comment about fucking Spongebob if my tattoo hadn’t said that Spongebob wasn’t shit, which means Jaemin would have never replied that Spongebob wasn’t shit, because I would never have said anything about fucking Spongebob. The world works in mysterious ways, Hyuck.”

The actual logistics behind Jeno’s comment kind of made sense, but Donghyuck was already tipsy, so it only gave him mild vertigo to even try to think about it, “yeah yeah, though I’m pretty sure my soulmate would be saying ‘welcome to Starbucks, may I take your order?’ even if I never speak to him.”

Jeno had given him a slightly pitying look, “who knows, maybe your soulmate started working at Starbucks because of what you  _ will _ say to him?”

  
  


Regardless of all the historical evidence of Jeno’s words to be disregarded as false (read: everything that ever came out of his shit-eating mouth), what he’d said that night stuck with Donghyuck. It gave him a renewed sense of importance, as well as refreshed vigor to continue his hunt for that damn soulmate of his. 

Despite Renjun being the other one in their friend group to have yet to find his soulmate, he was not the most willing to go along with Donghyuck’s excursions, “I fucking hate you for this, Lee Donghyuck, why couldn’t you have dragged Jaemin along with you?” 

“Because Jaemin brought Jeno over and sexiled me, which made me feel so single that I remembered that I haven’t been to the Seocho-gu Starbucks yet.”

Renjun glared at Donghyuck fiercely, “and I’m here; why?”

“So, I don’t look lonely while I make a fool out of myself in front of people.”

Renjun doesn’t say anything after that, so Donghyuck considers the topic dropped and skips inside.

The first thing Donghyuck notices is the boy making the drinks; the boy is cute in a way that makes Donghyuck’s heart stutter for a second. Chiseled features were all the rage these days, but the boyish charm the guy radiated sucked Donghyuck right in. Almost immediately, he wanted to cry because unless the boy switched over to register duty in the five seconds, it took for them to get to the counter, his first words would be “[type of drink] for Lee Donghyuck?!”

The second thing he notices is that the guy at the register doesn’t look too good, which makes Donghyuck a little antsy; the dude looks like he could hurl at any moment.

Donghyuck takes cautious steps towards the front, watching closely for any sign of upchuck, “um,”

“Welcome to,” the guy cuts off to swallow thickly, Donghyucks anxiety increases, “Starbucks, may I take your order?”

“Yeah, can I have a--”

Donghyuck doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before the guy is gone, rushing off with a mutter about the bathroom. Renjun glances over, “poor guy.”

As sympathetic as Donghyuck is to the boy who’s probably vomiting his guts out in the bathroom, his attention catches on the fact that the cute boy ( _ Mark _ , his name tag reads, how cute) is now walking over to the register.

Mark pastes on an awkward smile as he approaches, now is the moment of truth; Donghyuck anxiously waits the words Mark is about to say.

“Welcome to Starbucks, may I take your order?” Mark says, and Donghyuck almost sighs in relief; they’re not out of the ballpark yet, but for some reason, his body is on fire, none of the other probably six thousand employees have managed to make Donghyuck feel so wound up, and he’s ready to sit back and let fate happen.

However, “you sure you don’t want to make sure your buddy is alright first?” is not the carefully selected order Donghyuck had rehearsed a million times before. But it was out in the world, and either Mark got it, or he didn’t.

There’s a silence, Mark almost looks shocked, but Donghyuck is trying to make himself believe it has something to do with his not so lovely outburst rather than recognition. After a couple of seconds, even Renjun reaches to clutch at Donghyuck’s shirt.

The tension is broken, though, at Mark’s nervous giggle, “Yeah, I probably should, can you wait a second?”

The second Mark disappears to check on the other guy, Donghyuck lets his shoulders slump, “I really thought it was him for a bit, didn’t I,” maybe he should have ordered something first.

Renjun takes his hand in his own, “there are plenty of other cute boys, maybe Jaehyun from IT will be a Starbucks employee for Halloween, and that’ll be how your first conversation goes.”

They leave before Mark ever emerges from the bathroom.

  
  


BONUS

Mark never really understood the context of ‘you sure you don’t want to make sure your buddy is alright first?’ but he knew that someone would say it one day, and it would just click.

The first thing that went through his mind as the boy standing behind the counter said those same words, was that he was beautiful, and the second was that he had to take a moment to think.

So he’d run into the bathroom, not even bothering to check on Yukhei, who still seemed to be just as sick as before. Staring into the mirror, Mark began to psyche himself up for the inevitable conversation he was about to have. 

“You can do this, dude, just go out, show your tattoo, say hi, and ask for his number.”

It didn’t really work, but someone had to go back out and man the register so he hesitantly dragged himself from the bathroom.

The air flew right out of Mark’s lungs when he noticed that the beautiful boy and his friend weren’t there anymore. 

A sort of franticness flew over Mark, he had to find them, job be damned. Quickly he ran out of the building, hoping to see them.

As if fate was on their side, the two weren’t too far from Starbucks, “HEY!” Mark yelled, waving his hand aggressively.

The shorter one turned around, and as soon as he saw Mark he tapped the beautiful one. Mark wasted no time sprinting up to the duo, “you left too early!”

Yanking his sleeve up, Mark showed them the blocky black letters on his forearm. The beautiful boy’s head sprung up, “no way!”

The boy tugged his shirt down to reveal ‘welcome to Starbucks, may I take your order?’ on his collarbone. 

The short one was immediately forgotten as Mark stared at the boy, “I’m Donghyuck, and I guess I’m your soulmate too now.”

A smile spreads across Mark’s face, “I’m Mark, may I have your number?”

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked it, leave a comment and let me know! i hope you did.
> 
> come and shout at me on my [twt](https://twitter.com/halcyeol) it would mean a lot (it's brand spankin new lol)


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